Like many labor negotiations, the talks between five Long Island Rail Road workers’ unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the railroad, broke down over wages.
The unions, which represent about half of the railroad’s work force, were willing to accept a retroactive 9.5 percent wage increase covering the last three years — the same deal the M.T.A. offered several other transit and civil service unions in recent months. But they also wanted a 5 percent raise in the current year, a demand that exceeded what the M.T.A. has offered to other unions.
The five unions are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the Transportation Communications Union. (Not all unions representing L.I.R.R. workers are on strike.)
The M.T.A. countered with a smaller raise for 2026, plus a lump-sum cash payment, which it said would avoid upending negotiations with more than 80 other unions. The authority is already in the process of negotiating a new contract with the Transport Workers Union, which represents city transit workers, including bus and subway workers.
Cash compensation for members of the five negotiating unions averaged over $136,000 in 2025, according to M.T.A. figures, making them among the highest-paid rail workers in the nation.
Union leaders have argued that their workers don’t make enough money to keep up with the cost of living in one of the most expensive metro areas in the United States. They have not received raises since 2022.
“Waiting four years for a raise is not fair, sustainable or realistic in an era of record inflation and rising housing costs,” two of the unions, representing machinists and communications workers, said in a statement on Sunday.
Long Island Rail Road workers are covered by a 1926 federal law that requires mediation and an extended review period before a strike is authorized. But the federal agency that oversees such disputes, the National Mediation Board, last year released the unions from mediation, a decision that cleared the path for a possible walkout.
A strike was postponed twice within the past year, after the unions requested the intervention of two federally appointed review boards. The three-person panels, which were appointed by President Trump, said the union workers should be paid more than what the M.T.A. was offering. But their recommendations are not binding, and a third panel cannot be requested.
Negotiations fell apart late on Friday, hours before a strike deadline, with the unions and management about 1 percentage point apart on wage increases for 2026. The unions rejected a proposal that would have required new employees to cover health care costs using a model different from the one current employees use.
Current employees pay up to 2 percent of their wages, before overtime, toward health care, according to the M.T.A. For instance, an employee with a $100,000 salary might pay $2,000 for family coverage in a year, not including some fees. Under the M.T.A.’s proposal, health care might cost a new employee with that salary up to $3,500 or more a year.
M.T.A. officials had also said they would consider the unions’ wage offer if the unions were willing to give up a number of work rules that often require higher pay for certain tasks. The unions declined to do so.
For instance, if an engineer drives a diesel train at the start of a shift but is asked to switch to an electric train in the same day, the M.T.A. must compensate that worker with two days’ pay. If, on the same day, the engineer is also asked to switch from driving passengers to driving a train back to a yard for maintenance or storage, that worker is entitled to a third day’s pay.
These penalty payments added almost 15 percent to the average engineer’s compensation in 2024, the M.T.A. said.
Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s transit system.
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